Quick-start newb guide for multi-client

My brother asked me for help to get started with multi-client and I drafted this email for him – so I modified and am posting here if useful for folks getting started. This is capturing about two months now of my experience, this is my complete configuration for single box (not multi-hardware config). I use a single PC that is a year old with a decent but not uber graphics card (also over a year old) and 2 gig memory. Not a rocket monster but good enough to five man on one box. Hope this is helpful. Of course, I borrowed very heavily from all the great folks from this site, and this is largely a compilation of many stickies and other valuable posts -- too many to capture all those who deserve credit. Thank you all in this community for making my gaming experience great!

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Ok, so you are ready to have a blast?

I’m compiling this email for you based on my experience. If you are willing to invest a few hours of reading and testing macros, dying a few times while learning, then you can rise to the next level of gaming It will completely change WoW for you – warning, you are likely to quit your current main and start your own 5 man group after trying a 2 man and learning the ropes.You will need to choose a key emulation program. I use “keyclone”. It costs one time $20 or so with paypal, but it’s worth it imho. I haven’t tried any of the others (like mouse emulation, keys alone are enough for me). I suggest you start with keyclone, then explore others as you advance. The basic idea is keyclone passes every keystroke into the other WoW clients you have running. You can exclude some keys (you can fully configure) like bag opening, map look, etc. This way, you can play just one ‘main’ screen, and don’t even have to look at the ‘slave’ screens. You’ll notice on dual-boxing that some folks are very serious about this, and have full 5-man hardware setup for each character to have their own PC! I don’t want to spend $10k for this, so I run everything on one machine and I’m totally happy with performance. Yes, you will have to tune down your graphics on your main and run in a windowed mode, so it does detract a bit – but not much imho.

Here is a complete WoW macro guide – very useful. If you ask basic macro questions at the dual-boxing forums, you’ll get this answer almost everytime: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...picId=96143900

Save posting on the dual-boxing forums for when you are not getting an expected behavior from a macro. The folks here are very knowledgeable and really eager to help – I’m amazed how fast I get responses.

Ok, so you are ready to get started. I recommend doing INSTANCE only leveling for new multi-boxers (of course you’ll have to grind initially, for horde you can start 5 man in Ragefire by lvl 11, for Alliance you can start Deadmines by 16, maybe earlier if you are bold), so this guide below will focus on configuring for that. You can explore other tools/macros for completing quests, but I’ve found the fastest way (and most painless) is pure instance leveling. I also skip herbing/mining/skinning and just have one enchanter (easiest on main) to disenchant stuff you collect in instances, then sell all enchanting components to make money. I’ve never had to buy a thing on AH for any of the five man, you will get plenty of gear in instances for them.You will want to use a couple of mods, these are the only three I think you should use, others optional.

For the action bars. I use dominos:

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...5-Dominos.html

Dominos is great because it is the easiest mod to help you bind keys. This is super important for your macroing strategy.



For ignoring others (like duel requests) and auto-repair when talking to vendors (very handy for quickly repairing slaves) I use minimalist:

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...inimalist.html


For general UI, I like pitbull – it allows you to easily move all of the UI elements (like targets, player, group etc).

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...itBull3.0.html

NOTE: you only need to install pitbull for the MAIN Wow interface folder and can remove from your slaves for performance.

The cartographer series is awesome for maps, tracking herbing/mining, and instance maps inside dungeons, but is optional. I use auctioneer/enchantrix etc for my auction alt to buy/sell – this is a hugely valuable mod but outside of scope of this writeup. I also like arkinventory for consolidating bags on main and slave UIs, but it is not essential. I absolutely LOVE autobar on mains and slaves, but I’ve found its finicky and takes a lot of patience to configure. I use a lot of other UI mods, but these four above are more than enough for you to get started.

I’m going to share my complete setup, so you may want to customize based on your experience. But this is the most efficient imho. I use my LEFT hand for all attacks/heals, my RIGHT hand controls movement and is solely on the mouse at ALL times (well nearly all, I’ll explain later for the rarely used macros that require right ctrl, right shift, right alt to hit the right-side numbers).

This is my key binding setup (you change this by hitting ‘escape’ and then ‘key bindings’) most of the Key 2 settings don’t matter so I’ll only list them if I use them. Also, many things not listed I have UNBOUND – or it’s a feature I just never use. The entire left-hand keyboard will be assigned here or later with macros, so if a setting is NOT listed, I have it unbound for a reason; note also, yes I'm using R key for my slaves, I don't chat at all when I'm five manning with keyclone running)

MAIN CHARACTER BINDINGS:

Move Forward: W

Move Backward: KEY 1: X, KEY 2: down arrow

Turn Left: A

Turn Right: D

Strafe Left: Z

Strafe Right: C

Jump: Spacebar

Toggle Autorun: KEY 1: Q, KEY 2: Middle Mouse (very important assignment for these 2, I’ll explain later)

Target Nearest Enemy: Tab

Target Nearest Friend: CTRL+Tab

Toggle Character pane: V

Toggle Backpack: B (with ark inventory this opens all bags into one consolidated bag view)

Toggle Game Menu: EscapeToggle World Map: M (only right side mapping I do, just out of habbit I remember “Map” as M)



Now let’s configure the UI action bars. You want to use action bars that are rarely used, so if you want to solo play without the slaves, you can play without moving buttons on action bars 1-6. You only need 2 bars to start so I recommend you use bars 9 & 10 for your slaves. Start with 2 now, eventually you might need many more but you can modify when you get more advanced (this also depends on how many different classes you have in the makeup of your 5 man. The more classes, the more bars you will need. I recommend you keep it simple to start).Type /dom to open the dominos config and select “Enter config mode” then close the config window.On both my main and my slave windows, I move the 2 SLAVE bars up to the top middle of the screen. I keep my UI clean for my main, and all his ‘mainly’ things I have set down at the bottom of my screen. So I can see clearly the slaves I have their bar(s) at the top. Click with middle mouse to activate the bars (by default they will be inactive). Use pitbull to move the targets on your main so the top bars don’t block them.

Now lets keybind. Using dominos, type /dom again, turn off “enter config mode” and select “Bind Keys”. On the top bar, bind the keys from left to right as follows:E,R,T,F,G,` (that is ‘tilde’, the squiggly key next to the number 1 on your keyboard),Shift+E,Shift+R,Shift+F,Shift+G,Shift+`T hen on bar two, run your numbers 1-10 and – and = (or if you prefer, run the F1-F12 here. This will preserve your 1 to = settings if you have other players on your machine or wish to play other characters without slaves, you won’t have to rebind everytime).

Now make your WoW folder copies.Make a FULL copy of your WoW folder in your program files. The original install, keep that as your ‘main’. Create a new shortcut for the WoW client and name it “Slaves” and rename the original to “Master” so you don’t get confused. Launch your “main” window, and configure it for “windowed” and you will have to experiment with how much of the graphics you can run. Minimize the ‘main’ window, and launch the ‘slave’ client. You will have to log into a different account, Todiefor is on sfichter. In this ‘slave’ window, make it ‘windowed’ also, but turn ALL the graphics options either off or down to the lowest possible. You will almost never be in this screen viewing, and you don’t want your graphics card to work hard. Choose the very smallest window setting, like 800x600. For every slave from 1 to 4 slaves, you will reload this ‘slave’ WoW instance. You NEVER have more than one ‘main’ instance running. Always minimize slave windows before playing in your main, you’ll see a huge performance difference if you don’t minimize.Now we can make a couple of keybinding changes for the Slaves.

SLAVE CHARACTER BINDINGS: Everything is exactly the same as main above except the Move Backward key and 2 slaves strafe KEY 2 assignments. During combat, you will find (extremely annoying :( ) that very few fights stay directly in front of you – the mobs tend to run behind you, to the side etc. You will need to TURN left or right often and you want the entire team to turn, especially if you are using casters as they will have to face each target. Keeping the key bindings the same insures they move with your main. We’ll talk about /follow and /assist later in macros (yes even with focusless/targetless strategy there are a few skills that Blizz has broken, imho, and you have to resort to /assist unfortunately), how to keep them in line with your main post combat.For Move Backward, I like to use a diamond pattern to spread out (see Master screen shot image below). During combat it’s not necessary to spread out, but there are times you will want to (like when I want to know if all four slaves made it into the instance – when they stand on top of each other you can’t always tell. Also, later when you pvp grind, spreading out just looks fearsome and will send most running in fear so you can avoid a fight to own a tower! Muaahahah!!). So, Slave 1 will stay still, your main and Slave 2 will move backward with X, but two slaves I strafe right and left respectively. So for the two slaves that strafe, both have “Move Backward” KEY 1: down arrow, KEY 2: unbound, and then I set the Strafe Right and Strafe Left KEY 2 setting to X respectively. Get it? So when I hit X, this happens: Slave 1 stands still, Main, and Slave 2 move backward. I hit mouse wheel on and off fast to move main back to front. Slave 3 strafes left, Slave 4 strafes right. When I hit Z all five strafe left, when I hit C all five strafe right. When I hit down arrow, all five march backward together. Now, if you are using a Priest as main (very common 5 man setup), for pvp you may want to put him in the center of the diamond to fool opponents. You’re smart if you’ve been able to follow this far so if you test above pattern you’ll figure out how to do that.

Now you need to setup macros. Fortunately it doesn’t really take many to get started. In the main char Wow client, hit ‘escape’ and ‘macros’ to enter the macro panel. Hit the ‘new’ button, select an icon and name the macro “invite” then hit ok. In the Command window, cut and paste this:

/invite slave1name

/invite slave2name

/invite slave3name

/invite slave4name

/ffa (this sets group loot to free for all so your main can loot everything)

Drag this macro icon to the hotkey slot Shift+E

On the slaves, create the accept macro (btw, I HIGHLY recommend you configure one slave FULLY, then copy the entire ACCOUNT subfolder in your world of warcraft/WTF repository in the slave WoW folder copy AFTER building the slave macros. Will save you a LOT of cutting and pasting, and will also preserve your dominos UI settings and key bindings).

Create the “accept” macro:

/script AcceptGroup();

/script AcceptQuest();

/script AcceptTrade();

/script RetrieveCorpse();

/script RepopMe();

/script AcceptBattlefieldPort(1, 1)

Drag the accept macro to Shift+R hotkey on SLAVEs. Note, this is the same macro you will use for slaves to auto accept trades, resurrections, etc.On your main UI, create a BLANK macro with the word ACCEPT as the name, and paste it to the Shift+R hotkey. Do this for EVERY slave macro by the way (again see Master screen shot below), and use the appropriate icon picture. Even though the macro is blank for the main, you are going to see the picture for the attack and it’s the best way for a mental map I’ve found. So your Main’s slave action bars on the top screen will LOOK exactly like each Slave’s, but your main’s will be filled with a bunch of blank macros (some, you’ll find with experience you can actually put different macros for the main’s behavior, and different per each slave too, but let’s keep it simple for now).

Next, we’ll create the master follow and targeting macro. We are going to use the targetless strategy, so the slaves will always keep the main targeted (a few exceptions depending on class skills, I’ll explain later). There was a good sticky at one point here on dual-boxing that outlined the 'targetless' strategy, but I can't locate it in my searches. This sticky on Focusless/targetless strategy is a bit advanced and I haven't tried it yet, but it looks interesting:
Focusless, targetless, 'leaderless' setup.

By far, of all the strategies I’ve tried, going with a ‘targetless’ slave strategy is the best. Until I find the link for the basic writeup explaining the concept, here it is: In a nutshell, this means that all of your slaves NEVER (well almost never, I’ll explain caveats in a bit) have an enemy target. All they EVER have is the main targeted. They just adopt the main’s target when they need to attack, but they actually never lose focus/target on the main (again, a couple of exceptions I’ll explain).

/target [target=mainname, nodead, help, exists];[target= slave1name, nodead, help, exists];[target= slave2name, nodead, help, exists];[target= slave3name, nodead, help, exists]

/stopmacro [combat]

/follow

Drag this icon to the F bound key. Notice with this macro you will always be targeting your main, unless he’s dead, then you’ll target slave1 to take over automagically until dead, etc. Very nice recovery macro in case your main dies. ALSO note the /stopmacro [combat] directive. This is very important for the targetless strategy and my contribution to 'teh big button' concept. You want your slaves to automatically recapture your main as the target and /follow does that, HOWEVER, it also causes them to spin around from whatever direction they are facing. This is DEFINITELY something YOU DON’t want to have happen in the middle of combat. As I mentioned, during combat mobs run all around you, and you will want to turn left, right etc to have your slaves face the mobs. If you have any /assist macros, your slaves will lose the main as target, so to regain the target during combat you want to hit the big F button but you DON’t want them to spin around. Get it? I’ll explain the several scenarios where /assist is needed that throws the targetless strategy for a loop – but don’t worry, your F button macro here will accommodate. You just hit F before a fight to have them target and follow you, and during combat as you switch targets, you can hit the F key again to have them retarget the main if you have a /assist macro that breaks their target. This may not make sense to you right now, but trust me as you get experience you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Ok, now your E, R, T and G keys are open for you to assign your most frequently used slave combat/healing spells. In my current five man (1 priest 4 locks) I have the following:

E - all pets attack

R - all pets retreat

t - curse of agony (locks), Shadow Word: Pain (priest)

g - corruption (locks), Shadow Word: Shield (priest casts on tank pet, alternate with /castsequence for renew if 'weakened soul' active on tank)

F5- sometimes I lead with Immolate on locks, see (master.jpg below for full setup)

F1-F4 are the individual lock pet attacks.

I’ve found that with almost any five man config, there really are only 4-5 skills you use all the time. So sticking with our left-hand only strategy, pick the top four and place them on your E,R,T and G keys. The rest you can start filling in on slave action bar 2 you’ve created.Here is the slave macro you’ll use for almost every type of attack or heal in the targetless strategy:

/cast [target=targettarget] spellname

There are advanced scripts to these (like adding help/harm and modifier switches) but for now, start with these above. Note to spell the skill/spell identically to the root skill from the spell book. You don’t have to place rank, the highest rank will be applied unless you specify it.

Ok, now a word about /assist.The targetless strategy does NOT work for many valuable skills depending on the slave classes. For instance, wand attacks by casters use the ‘shoot’ skill, but the targetless cast would be this:

/cast [target=targettarget] shoot

Unfortunately, your caster will fire once and only once. If you want to autofire until mob is dead, you would have to do this:

/assist

/cast shoot

The /assist here takes the slaves’ target off main, but this is ok with the F key macro I made for you above. Just hit the F key between each new target, and you’ll be fine. The /stopmacro [combat] allows your slaves to re-grab your main as target without spinning to follow. You’ll find you’ll need /assist in different skills. I’ve found it was required for drain soul, mana, life etc for warlocks, I’m quite sure there are many others out there as well.Almost ready to go.

Throw in a macro for mount also using /cast although you only have to place the mount name after:

/cast Gray Kodo

will mount the tauren gray kodo etc. For lock or pally you will summon, so it would be: /cast summon felsteed

Throw in your hearthstone, water, food, and your panel might look like this (for both slave and master below; notice how on each action bar I’ve placed rarely used stuff on the keys that require the right hand to activate, or an awkward stretch by left hand over to the right side of the keyboard):

MASTER:

http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mastertg5.jpg

SLAVE:
http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=slaveme4.jpg

Note: yes, I did move the 4 slave action bars on the main to the bottom right of my screen. I suggest you keep the slaves at the top to begin and then move as you wish, but hey, do what ya want )

Now copy the ACCOUNT folder in WTF for the slaves for each slave client, and you’ll have all the macros already in the macro pallet.

Launch the main, then each slave Wow account, then launch keyclone. Start with ‘invite’ by your main then ‘accept’ by your slaves. Hit the ‘invite’ once more to change the group loot. Hit the F (teh big macro) for them to target you and follow you. Now on your main you ONLY move with your mouse. Click the middle wheel to toggle autorun on/off. Remember any keystroke you do is mimicked by the slaves. You are off and running! Expect a few whipes when starting out, be patient, and most importantly have fun and contribute your learnings back here at base camp!

Cheers

I think this needs to be stickied this is a great guide. addressed alot of the questions i had when i first got set up and has the links right at your disposal basically.

Thanks Ghrizzle -

Most all of the information I've presented you can find here at dual-boxing, I've just consolidated from many posts and my learnings.

I've added:

1) My full configuration (including all key bindings) and my strategy for COMPLETE left handed control of slaves and right hand only on mouse.

2) addressed a flaw in the targetless/focusless strategy for a few skills that require /assist. The /stopmacro [combat] before /follow in 'teh big button' makes a nice one-stop macro button for follow and regaining main target in between mobs.

Hopefully my screen shots also help the beginner visually to think about how to setup their action bars and map to their slaves effectively.

My brother wanted a writeup guide he could easily follow, so hopefully this will help folks.

ps. something wierd happend when I cut and paste this from my Word email editor, it broke up a lot of the returns - so I'll try to edit in the next few days, point out if something is unclear in the text and I'll edit.

Good mulit-client gaming all!

Great guide, good work.. :thumbup: